In the context of coronary vessel disease, the flow of oxygenated blood to the myocardium of the heart is inhibited by a stenosis or obstruction on one or more of the coronary arteries, Flow can be restored by providing a coronary artery bypass graft (CABG). In this procedure, connection is established between the aorta and a normal segment of the diseased coronary vessel using a free vein (e.g. saphenous vein) or arterial (e.g. radial) segment. Alternatively, a distal segment of an vessel (e.g. internal mammary, gastroepiploic etc) is mobilized, severed and attached to the coronary vessel. Both the free grafting and the mammary artery, gastroepiploic artery grafting can be performed during open chest surgery with or without cardiolpulmonary bypass (“on/off pump”) or using less invasive (“minimally invasive”) techniques, ultimately, thoracoscopy without opening the chest. One problem the surgeon faces during any of these above procedures is how to grab the bypassing vessel since the vessel with the interrupted blood flow becomes flabby and hard to handle, does not keep the preferred (i.e. a elongated ) shape to fit exactly the aperture on the target vessel. Also, the bypassing vessel needs extremely gentle handling to prevent even minimal damage that can lead to future proliferation and eventually, narrowing of either the vessel and/or that of the anastomosis. Acutely, rough handling of the live conduit artery (i.e. internal mammary artery) might lead irreversible spasm. Therefore, it is imperative to have an apparatus, which makes:
1) grabbing of the conduit vessel easy and less traumatic,
2) the anastomosis site of the bypassing or blood supplying vessel follows the desired shape, and
3) the proper sizing of the target aperture to mimic the size and configuration of the bypassing or blood supplying distal anastomosis aperture.